welcome to the "closing bell," john. >> thank you. nice to be here. >> thank you so much for joining us. i want to talk first about the broad environment, what you're seeing, because we talk so much here about the challenges as a result of washington and this slowing growth story for the economy. what are you seeing? >> well, 2012 was the year housing really made its statement at its back. it's not back to where it was, but surely we can now say housing has turned the corner so that's a good thing for the economy. when housing does well, everything else seems to do well. quite a multiplier effect. in fact, there's been no recovery in this country of size or stability without housing participating or leading. energy is doing pretty well. we see some manufacturing, but to be honest about it, the recovery is still not as strong as it needs to be. there's still too much uncertainty, and there needs to be more clarify for the economy to take off. >> a really important point because i think businesses are, you know, shaping up and are curre